zoya describes holly as " rich holly green with subtle yellow tones in a luminous metallic finish. great for giving the nails a flash of rich gem-toned color." i must admit, i don't see the subtle yellow tone.

the formula is dreamy, it is almost opaque after the first coat but the second one is needed the even the surface out. the color is my favorite emerald green, and it really makes your nails stand out.

the color is yet again difficult to explain, let's call it a dark greyish blue. it could be one coater, but i had bald spots on a few nails so decided to add a second coat. it dries semi-matte, so the formula is yer again thick. the finish is a bit different from steel my soul, it dries a bit rubbery and i love it!

i must admit, i hated yellow and didn't have any polish or any piece of clothing in this color. and then, about a year or two something clicked and i apsolutely love it now!
i new i had to have acapulco when i first saw the promo pics. mind you, this time, dior really did bad job with these because all the colors look quite different in real life.

anyway, this color screams summer! it is a bright lemony yellow, but a REAL yellow, without any orange undertones. the formula is amazing, especially when you have in mind that the yellows are usually a difficult to apply. here, the formula is somehow self-leveling, even if you have a streak, it disappears after a few seconds. the finish has a high shine on its own (well, it says gloss on the package) and it is a jelly. i had almost a perfect coverage with two layers, but decided to add another one because what looks "completely covered" under a naked eye, it could be different in the pictures. there is a bit of a VNL, but this is expected from a jelly. i didn't use a top coat (this is a first for me!).

Saturday, 25 August 2012

the 14th theme friday has finished! i am a little bit late with the collage, but i was away from my office on thursday, and only my work computer can handle 44 pictures lined up in photoshop. the theme was red (i chose chanel dragon), and the current theme are dots!

this shade of blue is insanely amazing. it is one of the blues that i, suprisingly, didn't have and also didn't know that i would definitely need :D it is a beautiful creme light sky-blue with a little bit of purple undertone. the formula is amazing (finally!) and you get a full coverage after two coats. i couldn't stop watching at my nails.

the color is dark smokey blue, packed with lighter blue shimmer. formula is yet again thickish (i don't know what is the problem with these new polishes, since i never had any difficulties with catrice's formula), but i didn't have problems with application, as in other ones, or maybe i just got used to it. i will definitely add a drop or twoof thinner in all of the new polishes.
i will post only the direct sunlight photos this time, because i couldn't manage to get good ones in other lights.

the color itself is beautiful. i love these dark yellow/light orange shades (i call this color "mango", since i feel it fits them the best). there is a little bit of silverish shimmer, which is barely visible even when the sunlight hits the nail, so i had to really think whether to label the finish as a creme or shimmer, but decided to go with the latter.

the formula is where things start to get problematic.it is quite thick and not the easiest to work with. after two coats, it gets opaque but everything looks streaky and there are some bold spots that i didn't notice while applying the polish (since my room is always dark). top coat evened out the surface, but i wasn't really satisfied with the result. the third coat would probably look better, but i didn't feel like adding another coat of polish on top of the top coat, and than to have to seal it with the top coat again.

strangely enough, it photographs excellently. the direct sunlight photos are exactly how the polish looks like.

the color is amazing, somewhere between teal and blue. in the bottle, you can seethe violet shimmer that looks like an oil spill, but it is almost invisible on the nails. nevertheless, i am completely in love with this color. it looks chic and it is something that i thought was missing in the catrice's range of shades. i had the feeling i was wearing a high end polish while i had this one on the nails.

formula is, yet again, a little bit on the thick side, but nothing difficult. two coats are more than enough for complete coverage.

every girl should have her favorite red polish, right? well, until yesterday evening, i didn't have one. if you look at my collection, you will see that i have only one true red (the miss sporty one), and this one is at my bf's place. so, i decided to find my own perfect red polish. i admit that i am both a geek and a nerd, so i spend some time searching for swatches on other blogs, and i finally decided on chanel 475 dragon.

i obviously did my research well, because i instantly fell in love with this polish (just to remind you, this is a red polish, not blue or green :D) i can now see why the girls write that if they should have only one red polish, it would be dragon.

the color is insanely beautiful. a true red, with a bit of brown undertone, which is visible when there is no direct sunlight. the formula is pure perfection, the application couldn't be easier. the only reason why my nails don't look perfect, is because that lately i've been experimenting with another way of painting my nails, so i am still practicing.

after a lot of thinking, i decided to start doing little retrospective of the polishes i wore in the previous month (even though it's the middle of august). it's a good idea to keep track of all the swatches.

catrice 905 steel my soul is the first polish i'm wearing from their new colors for autumn 2012. i did buy a lot of them, and i am not planning to just swatch them but to wear them like i do regularly.

this polish is advertized with a new finish, "brushed metal effect". they dry semi-matte and have a kind of textured finish. i love that their brush is wide and flat, but here i guess it wouldn't hurt if it was a bit narrower, since the polish is thickish i had to put two thicker coats to make it work. the color is greyish with a hint of purple (i read somewhere that they called it a purplish "greige", which is a pretty good description). it is packed with beautiful golden shimmer that doesn't need direct light to be visible.
base coat (opi start to finish) + two coats of polish, no top coat:

now that you saw my entire collection sorted by brands, it is time to reveal plans regarding buying new polishes and some kind of resolutions i made to myself that i will try to keep up with until the end of this year.

this is one of the most popular dupes of chanel paradoxal. the color is a mix of purple, brown, taupe and mauve with a subtle, hidden purple shimmer that only comes to life when the light hit it. basically, i call this color "mud", it's easier that way :) the formula and polish are both amazing, i mentioned many times that i love when the brush is wide and is is one of the easiest i ever worked with. too bad that i don't like their other colors enough to get some more colors.
it was difficult to catch the shimmer with my camera, but i hope that some of it is visible.
natural light:

for this theme friday i decided to pull out the big gun, my favourite china glaze 2nite. this one is from the infamous OMG collection from 2009, which is almost impossible to find, while being one of the most perfect collections ever.

i wore butter london's knackered on it's own once, and, even though it is shear and needs at least three layers to look opaque, i found it really cute. this time, i decided to use it for layering and trixie seemed like a good choice. "a sheer, twinkling oyster shade flecked with micro glitter holo particles" over "stunning light silver with a sparkling metallic foil finish" sounded good to me, and i wasn't wrong!

knackered toned down the intense silver in trixie and gave it a hint of duochrome. holo glitter is a bit camera shy, but it looks really gorgeous in the sunlight.

butter london polishes have become one of my favorites. i got three of them during my visit to germany (and i cursed myself a couple of times for not going to germany for phd, since i could buy more of them :D). their colors are amazing, and don't get me started on the perfect formula and finish.

zoya describes this polish as a "stunning light silver with a sparkling metallic foil finish. a chic and edgy shade that adds a spark to your look". i couldn't agree more! the polish is amazing, very dense with a metallic, mirror-like sparkly finish. it applies without streaks, but with a bit of a textured finish and it is very opaque.

zoya polishes (15 ml) are probably my favorite brand. they are pretty much "everything free", including animal cruelty. they have a variety of colors and finishes, and it seems pretty weird, since i love them so much, that i have only a few of them. the thing is, i kind of buy them when i feel i really deserve them. i have no idea where this psychological mess comes from, but it's stuck somehow.

i wrote about similarity of essence wake up with opi's good man-darin, and here i present the swatch of wu!

unfortunately, my visit home lasted 5 days instead of 2 (unfortunately because of the reason i had to prolong my stay), and i had only this polish with me, and the bottle was almost empty. it was already too thick to handle it properly, so the first time i applied it, i wasn't patient enough and it was too hot at my place, so i had a lot of bubbles. the second time, i was more careful, but the polish was even thicker and i had no thinner so it applied horribly, but i have to publish the pictures, because i finally saw the bottom of the bottle and it was my last chance to take pictures.